


The Disappearance

by WynterSky



Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3544019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WynterSky/pseuds/WynterSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When every adult in Konoha vanishes, Itachi and an overwhelmed substitute teacher are left to care for the children left behind while attempting to find the cause behind the disappearances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Itachi sighed as he leaned back against the wall of his bedroom. He had hardly slept at all the night before, and now the sun was beginning to glow through the paper wall panels. Soon, his father would rise to tend to his police work, and his mother would get up and send Sasuke off to the Ninja Academy.

And a painfully short time after that, Sasuke and Itachi would be the only ones left alive.

After a little while, birds began to sing outside, but there was still no sound from the master bedroom. That was rather odd, but perhaps they had decided to sleep in.

Trying to keep his mind off what he was going to do, Itachi began to clean his room; a completely pointless action, both because the room was already pristine and because he would no longer need it after today. Still, the familiar routine did help a little.

He was sorting his books again—by topic this week, he decided—when he heard small footsteps pattering down the hallway and all through the house.

Sasuke almost never got up on his own, Itachi thought with a frown, and there was still no sign of their parents being up and about. Perhaps his little brother had had a nightmare, but then wouldn’t he have come to Itachi’s room straightaway?

Now very curious as to what was going on, Itachi was about to open his bedroom door and go find Sasuke when the door was shoved open and Sasuke burst in, running straight into Itachi.

“You shouldn’t run in the house, Otouto…” Itachi began, then paused, quickly kneeling next to Sasuke as he saw the tears in the child’s wide dark eyes. “Sasuke-chan, what’s wrong?”

Sasuke sniffled, putting his arms around Itachi’s neck and burying his face in his brother’s shirt. “I felt something funny and I woke up and then I went to see Mama…”

The words were a little indistinct, and Itachi gently loosened Sasuke’s grip on him so that he wasn’t mumbling into the fabric of his shirt. “What happened, Sasuke-chan?” he asked, now genuinely concerned.

“Mama wasn’t there!” Sasuke burst out, starting to cry in earnest. “And neither was Papa and I went to look for them and I still couldn’t find them and I thought you would be gone too and—”

Itachi hugged his brother tightly, gently stroking his soft, fluffy hair. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered as Sasuke continued to sob. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find them.”

Sasuke stopped crying long enough to look up into his brother’s eyes. “Promise?” he asked thickly, with a choked little hiccup.

“Promise.”

Itachi was, without question, the worst person in the world, he decided as he looked down at Sasuke’s trusting face.

……

Itachi’s promise to find their parents (for however brief a time) proved more difficult to keep than he had expected. He headed for the master bedroom first, Sasuke clinging tightly to one hand with both of his—his little brother clearly did not want to be separated from his currently and soon permanently only remaining family member.

Standing in the doorway of their parent’s room, Itachi surveyed the interior before entering. There were no traces of any strange chakra signatures, nor was there any evidence of a struggle.  “Was it like this when you went in the first time?” he asked Sasuke, who was now half-hiding behind him.

Sasuke nodded nervously, hanging back a bit as Itachi entered the room.

Not only were there no signs of a fight, Itachi realized, there was no sign that his parents had even risen. The bedcoverings were slightly rumpled but not tossed aside; rather, bunched up as if there were still bodies under them. Kneeling by the futon, Itachi flipped the covers back. There was nothing underneath, but that hadn’t been what he was looking for. He placed one hand on the futon—it was cold. Whatever had happened, it must have been an hour ago or more.

“Do you know where they are, Nii-san?” Sasuke asked hopefully as Itachi stood up.

Itachi wasn’t sure how to reply. “I’m sure they must be around somewhere,” he said finally. After all, their parents couldn’t just have vanished into thin air, could they? “Let’s go outside and look.”

Sasuke was still clinging to Itachi as they went outside. It had been Itachi’s intention to speak to the watchman at the compound gate, but it was clear at a glance that the man wasn’t there. Itachi made a mental note to speak to the Hokage about that; the watchman should be busted down to genin for being so stupidly careless.

However, the watchman wasn’t the only person gone. “Itachi-nii-san, where is everybody?” Sasuke whispered, looking fearfully up and down the silent street. Somewhere in the distance, an infant began to wail, and Itachi knew that something was desperately wrong.

……

Just in order to make sure, Itachi searched some of the houses before drawing his conclusion: every single adult in the Uchiha compound was gone.

“Nii-san, where are Mama and Papa?” Sasuke asked again. The child had quickly gotten tired of walking so Itachi was now carrying him.

Itachi wasn’t sure how to reply. As he had gone through the compound he had acquired quite a group of followers, and saying that all of their parents were gone might start a panic.

There were some children around older than him, but only a few; due to the war, there had been a drop in births for several years preceding Itachi’s arrival. Even those older than Itachi were deferring to him at the moment, both because he was the son of the clan head and because he seemed to know what he was doing.

“I’m not sure yet, Otouto,” Itachi whispered in Sasuke’s ear before turning to the gathered children. They stared back expectantly and he sighed. “Everyone, please listen to me,” he began. “I promise I will find out what is going on, but first we need to make sure everyone is safe. How many of you left siblings at home?”

About a third of the children raised their hands. Another third seemed to be gathered in sibling groups, and the rest were probably only children.

“Go home and get them,” Itachi ordered. “Get bottles and diaper bags for the babies if you can find them, then bring them to the main training hall. Who here has already made genin?”

There were only six or seven hands this time.

“You come with me to find any children who are still inside their houses. Everyone else, head straight to the training hall.”

Gently setting Sasuke on the ground, Itachi gave him a little nudge in the direction of the training hall after the other children, but Sasuke didn’t move. “I won’t go!” he said firmly.

“But Sasuke-chan, I have things I need to do…” Itachi explained.

“Then I’ll come too!” Sasuke said, grabbing onto the hem of Itachi’s shirt and refusing to let go. “Please don’t leave me, Nii-san…”

Itachi moved to pry the little fingers loose, then stopped as Sasuke’s lower lip began to tremble.  He had never had much defense against his brother’s tears. “All right,” he sighed, “but you have to promise to do exactly what I tell you.”

……

It took almost two hours before Itachi was satisfied that they had searched every inch of the Uchiha compound where a child might possibly be found. There were fifty-three children in all, counting himself and Sasuke. The training hall just barely had room for everyone.

There was still no respite to be had, since after all the children had been gathered they of course wanted to be fed. Itachi sent the little group of genin out to scrounge for whatever cereal, canned goods, and baby food they could find, with orders to distribute everything as evenly as possible. Thankfully, the training hall had a tap outside, otherwise it would have been a nightmare trying to get water to everyone.

Leading Sasuke over to a spot that hadn’t been claimed by anyone yet, Itachi quietly sat down next to his brother. “Look, I know you want to stay with me,” he began, “but I really need you to stay here with the others.”

“But—” Sasuke started, and Itachi cut him off before he could turn on the waterworks again.

“It’s a very important ninja mission,” Itachi said firmly. “I need you to stay here and make sure everything goes okay while I go into town and find out what’s going on. Can you do that?”

Sasuke still looked unhappy, but he nodded and did not cling to Itachi this time. Itachi patted his little brother’s head affectionately. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be back in no time.”

Leaving the noisy training hall for the silence of the deserted compound, Itachi headed for the gate.

It was time to demand some answers from the Hokage.


	2. Chapter 2

Itachi bounded up to the rooftops as soon as he was out of the compound, and reached the Hokage Tower in barely more than a minute. It was late morning now, so there should have been more activity in the city; Itachi tried to convince himself that the silence wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

When he reached the doors to the tower and found them locked, he decided he couldn’t deny the truth any more. Barring some unique coincidence, the disappearances had not been isolated to the Uchiha compound.

Slipping in through a window, Itachi searched the tower just in case, but the building was completely deserted. It was a bit eerie—usually when Itachi was there it was bustling with couriers, plaintiffs, and the ubiquitous ANBU guards. Itachi’s light footsteps were actually audible in the echoing hallway.

“Well,” Itachi said finally, “there’s no good to be done here.” His voice hung tenuously in the stillness.

Itachi unlocked the doors as he left the tower; the larger building had much better facilities than the training hall where he had left the Uchiha children, perhaps he could bring them there. No sooner had he opened the doors than someone in a chuunin vest burst through them, bowling him over.

Itachi was a little embarrassed at his lack of reflexes, but he hadn’t been expecting to run into anyone else. The other boy—a teenager five or six years older than Itachi—seemed just as surprised.

“Sorry about that,” the boy said, helping Itachi to his feet. He had a wide scar crossing the bridge of his nose and a tousled brown ponytail. Itachi recognized him, but it took him a little while to produce a name.

“That’s all right, Iruka-san,” Itachi replied finally. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to speak to the Hokage,” Iruka said quickly. “None of the other teachers are at the Academy, there’s no one in the office, and dozens of students have already arrived. I know I shouldn’t have left them there, but, well, what’s happened to everyone?”

Itachi shrugged, slightly disheartened by this news even though he had been expecting something like it. “I don’t know what’s happened,” he replied. “But there’s no help to be had from the Hokage.”

Iruka’s eyes widened. “Is the Hokage gone as well?”

Itachi nodded. “As well as everyone else who works in that building. All of the adults in the Uchiha compound are gone, and I saw no one between there and here.”

Iruka let out a low whistle. “This is a mess. What should I do? I’m just a substitute teacher—I was only supposed to be in charge of making sure no one killed anyone else during kunai practice!”

It seemed everyone was going to rely on him, Itachi realized. This was understandable; an elite ANBU agent automatically commanded a great deal of respect, and he was probably one of the highest-ranking shinobi left in the village. However, he really didn’t have many answers at the moment. He wished Shisui were here—if he had known this was going to happen…

Iruka was still staring at him expectantly as they descended the steps, so Itachi knew he had to reply. “I’ll help you as much as I can,” he said. “How many students were at the Academy when you left?”

“About forty,” Iruka replied.

“And how many are enrolled?”

Iruka frowned in concentration. “Two hundred and seventy…eight?”

And that wasn’t even counting any ninja children too young to enroll, those who had washed out or already graduated, or civilian children. This was going to be a logistic nightmare, wasn’t it? “All right,” Itachi sighed, “We can’t possibly hold any classes, but we have to get all the children in one place. Do you have the keys to all the school facilities?”

“No, but it’ll only take a few seconds to break into Mizuki’s desk,” Iruka replied with a mischievous smirk. “I used to do that sort of thing all the time when I was in the Academy. The main auditorium is probably big enough to hold at least most of them,” Iruka continued, quickly guessing what Itachi was getting at, “and if not the cafeteria and the jutsu demonstration hall should hold the rest.”

“Good,” Itachi said, glad that Iruka was at least capable. “Go back and get to work on that. I’ll bring the Uchiha children over.”

……

Getting all the Uchiha children across the village was difficult but not as chaotic as Itachi had feared. Most of the older children had gone through disaster drills at the Academy, and while there were a few little panic attacks the younger ones on the whole behaved themselves. The eight infants were the most difficult to deal with; they were too young to understand anything more than that they were being taken to a strange place by people who were not their parents. They wouldn’t stop crying, and although he felt very guilty about it Itachi eventually had to resort to calming genjutsu before the infants’ stress could be passed on to any of the other children.

When they arrived at the Academy at almost ten, there were still only about forty children there, the number Iruka had said before.

“Where are the other students?” Itachi asked once he had gotten the children situated and stopped the arguments that instantly sprang up about who had the better spot.

“Probably still in their homes,” Iruka replied. “These are the ones who had their parents out on missions; I doubt most of them have figured out what’s going on. Everyone else likely stayed put once they realized their parents were gone.”

“We have to find them,” Itachi said quickly. He hated the thought of Sasuke alone in their house without supervision; children could do remarkably creative stupid things. Hopefully there hadn’t been any fires set so far.

Iruka promptly ran out of the room, something Itachi thought very strange until the teacher returned with a rolled-up poster. “From the Citizenship classes,” Iruka explained as he knelt on the floor and rolled out a large map of Konoha. “I might not be able to teach yet but at least I know where everything is.”

Taking the purple marker Iruka offered him, Itachi surveyed the map. “How many genin do we have?” he began, but the door of the auditorium was thrown open with a bang before he could reply.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” a girl shouted.

One of the babies began to cry again, and Itachi hurried over to the new arrivals. “Please keep your voice down, Hana-san,” he said quickly. “We have a bit of a situation.”

“No kidding,” Hana said, shifting the toddler she was balancing on her hip as she surveyed the crowded auditorium. The Inuzuka were a small clan, so besides Hana and her little brother Kiba, who was practically glued to Hana’s free hand, there were only thirteen other children, all under the age of ten. Several of them were barefoot, and a few looked like they had been roughhousing in the dirt—obviously they had gotten a bit rambunctious with the absence of the adults responsible for them. “Any idea what happened? I mean,” Hana continued, her voice dropping to confidential levels, “there aren’t any, you know, _bodies_.”

“I’m working on it,” Itachi replied. This was a nearly complete falsehood, but it would make everyone feel better if he appeared confident.

“Okay, good,” Hana said, setting the toddler down and deftly shifting Kiba’s grip to one of the toddler’s hands.  “Go find somewhere to sit, bratlings,” she ordered, gently shooing the children in the direction of an unoccupied corner. “So, anything I can do to help?” she asked. Itachi did not reply right away, and Hana shrugged dismissively as she noticed that he was staring at the rather more chaotic squabbles for territory. “Don’t worry, they’ll work it out,” she said calmly. “What do you need me to do?”

“We need to find all the other shinobi and civilian children and gather them here,” Itachi explained, leading Hana over to the map and picking up the marker again. “They can’t possibly all feed themselves, and if they don’t have any supervision there could be a real disaster.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hana said. “How many people do we have?”

“At the moment, nine people genin level or above, counting you. Iruka needs to stay here, though,” Itachi said. “I know there are other genin around but we’ll have to enlist them as we go.”

With a few marker strokes, the map was quickly divided into sectors and the searchers set off.

Konoha thankfully had a relatively high population density, but with only eight people searching Itachi still had a lot of ground to cover. He had one of the middle-class civilian districts, near the market. Hana was going to the area that contained the Hyuuga clan—Itachi had been sure that the Hyuuga children would not be pleased to have a member of their rival clan turn up at such a stressful time, so he had been glad when Hana arrived to help.

He had taken all the children he had found, seventeen so far, to a nearby playground for now. That way, they would be relatively occupied until he could take them all back to the Academy.

The next couple houses appeared to be empty, but Itachi could hear soft crying from the house after that. It sounded like a little girl, and Itachi carefully tried the door. It was locked, unfortunately—Itachi didn’t want to frighten the child or worse injure a sleeping sibling by breaking a window, so he went around to the back. That door was locked as well, but did not look as difficult to break down, or quite so valuable as the fancier front entrance. It only took a few seconds for Itachi to kick the lock in and push the door open.

“Hello?” Itachi called. The crying stopped, and Itachi mounted the stairs to the second floor where the sound had been coming from. “Hello? I’m here to help.”

There was quiet rustling from one of the rooms, then a small face framed by tousled pink hair peeked out. “Ninja-san?” the little girl said nervously. “Do you know where Tou-chan and Kaa-chan are?”

“We’re going to find them,” Itachi said, the half-truth coming quite glibly now that he had said it so many times. “Can you come with me?”

The little girl nodded, then ducked back into the room. Itachi looked through the doorway as she trotted over to a toy chest and rummaged through it before coming up with a scruffy stuffed cat with fur the color of her hair. Itachi noticed that she was limping a bit and knelt down next to her as she returned to his side.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asked, inspecting her bare feet and realizing that one little ankle was swollen.

“I went to get a glass of water and I tripped on the stairs,” the little girl explained.

Itachi gently picked her up before heading out of the house. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sakura,” the girl answered, clutching her toy tightly to her chest.

**Author's Note:**

> This is currently one of my most popular stories on FF so I am hosting it here as well. It was originally inspired by episode 19 of Young Justice ('Misplaced').


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